


Stop, Rewind, (re)Play

by Sinful Words (MontanaHarper)



Category: Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: Groundhog Day, M/M, Rough Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-03-06
Updated: 2004-03-06
Packaged: 2017-10-11 20:41:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/116885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MontanaHarper/pseuds/Sinful%20Words
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Elijah's having a fucked-up day. And then Elijah's having a fucked up day. And then Elijah's having a fucked-up day. And then....</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stop, Rewind, (re)Play

The loud, unforgiving buzz of Elijah's alarm cuts into his pleasant dreams and he reaches one hand out, blindly groping for the fucking snooze button in the dark and then (god-fucking-dammit) his glasses clatter off the top of the clock and onto the hardwood floor. He finally smacks the elusive button and the alarm stops its bleating, leaving him blinking in the dark, his eyes feeling like someone's replaced the lids with fine grit sandpaper while he's been asleep.

Squinting over at the glowing red numbers, he sighs. He'd already cut it as close as he could afford when he'd set his alarm last night; this morning there will be no snoozing a half dozen times until he feels more awake. He gropes along the top of the clock, finding the slider switch that turns the alarm off and flicking it, desperately resisting the temptation to let his eyelids fall closed again.

If he dozes off, it'll just result in Sean banging on his door and clucking at him like a fucking mother hen when it's time for them to head over to the lot, and he really doesn't need that shit. Sean will pull clothes from Elijah's closet—which means they'll be things Elijah hates, since his _wearable_ clothes are spread out across the various chairs and other flat surfaces of his bedroom—and while Elijah's showering he'll dig unsuccessfully through the fridge, looking for something to feed Elijah for breakfast, and the failed quest will result in being nagged about grocery shopping for the entire drive.

And honestly? Elijah's played out that particular scene once this week already, and he's tired of it. Pete can make him do endless takes on the job, but he'd just as soon stick to the live improv version of his life, thanks.

With a groan, he drags himself out of the bed and stumbles in the direction of the shower, not bothering to rescue his glasses from wherever they ended up. He knows his own apartment well enough to get around it completely blindfolded, so it's not like he really needs them at the moment.

He doesn't bother flipping the light switch in the bathroom, but reaches for the candle and matches by the sink. The soft, flickering light is plenty to see by at this time of the morning, and it doesn't make his head hurt. He should know better than to go out for drinks with the hobbits and the elf when he's got to be on set the next morning, but somehow he manages to forget the hangover every single fucking time.

Turning on the power to his CD player, he pushes the play button, then reaches into the shower and starts the water—one full counterclockwise turn of the hot knob, a quarter turn of the cold, then crank the shower knob all the way open. While it warms up, he takes a leak and then peers into the mirror above the sink, his face ghostly and sinister in the flickering shadows thrown by the candle's flame.

The music echoes a little in the small space, Scott Bondy's voice sounding almost intentionally reverbed as he begins to sing, "With hand to mouth it's hard to speak...." And Elijah's singing along, the words even more familiar to him than Frodo's lines.

Finally, ninety seconds after turning the shower on, he steps into the barely warm spray and tips his head back to enjoy the slow rising of water temperature. It gets to just below scalding in about another thirty seconds, and Elijah wants to melt into the spray, his arms wrapped around his torso and the water sheeting over his shoulders and back until he groans from the sheer hedonistic pleasure of it.

He pours a little liquid soap into his hands and works it into a good lather, the scent of clove filling the air and making him crave a cigarette. He's always told himself that the day he rolls out of bed and lights up is the day he quits, but he's not sure he can stick to that. After all, he'd always told himself that he'd never _start_ smoking, and look at how that had gone. Which is exactly the kind of thing that had prompted Orlando to announce one evening in the bar that Elijah should have "poor impulse control" tattooed on his forehead. It was apparently a reference to a book, but Elijah hadn't bothered to find out which one.

And then he's distracted, sort of, from thinking about his lack of impulse control because he's thinking about Orlando, and that's really just a different area in which he lacks self-control. As if to prove the point, his body responds with alarming speed to the mental image of Orlando's long, lean body so that within a matter of seconds his cock is hard and suggesting, pretty fucking insistently, that jacking off would be a really great idea right now.

Elijah has to admit that—for a change—he's in complete agreement with his cock, and he slides one soap-slick hand down to wrap around it, leaning back until the cold tiles are supporting him.

It's not just Orlando, though. He seems to be crushing on half the cast, which is both disturbing and physically trying. It's fucking hard—no pun intended—to find the emotions he's going for when he's got Viggo kneeling at his feet or Bean looking at him with an all-consuming hunger or Dom taking every opportunity to grab his ass when no one is looking.

And those are more images that go straight to his cock, making it twitch in his hand so that he knows he's not going to last much longer. The clove soap is making his cock tingle and go a strange combination of sensitive-numb that's not all that different from how the inside of his mouth feels when he's been smoking and he suddenly wonders if he could transfer that clove-smoke-residue sensation from his mouth to someone's cock and make them feel like this. His balls tighten at the thought of kneeling in front of someone—Viggo; he can see himself kneeling at Viggo's feet, fingers fumbling with the laces of Aragorn's breeches—because fuck, he hasn't sucked cock in...well, it's been way too long and the very idea of a slick-hot cock sliding into his mouth pushes him over the edge so that he's coming, hips thrusting against his fist as he rides out the wave.

He allows himself a couple of minutes lazing under the water, catching his breath, then steps forward and reaches for his shampoo, making quick work of washing his hair and body before shutting off the shower with a sigh and stepping past the curtain into the chilly bathroom to dry off.

Hell, if he were sure Dom was serious, Elijah'd gladly pin him against the nearest flat surface—vertical or horizontal, it doesn't matter—but he really could live without making a fool of himself. It's hard enough being the youngest of the Fellowship without giving everyone another reason to give him shit.

Still, it'd be fucking brilliant— He catches himself thinking in the British slang he's been hearing all around him the past few months and sighs. He may as well give up; they're going to give him shit no matter what, whether for flirting or for picking up the slang or for his taste in music. No matter what he does he's fucked, so he may as well go for it.

And the decision seems to be the right one, because as soon as he's made it, he notices which song is playing, takes in the lyrics that are echoing around him...

  
_I like the guys with the sharp tongues,_  
kissing your friends is the most fun,  
ask do you wanna, do you wanna....  


...and he's got to laugh at the universe's sense of humor, while hoping that it stays that benign.

Mostly dry, with his hair sticking up at odd angles and a towel wrapped around his waist, Elijah brushes his teeth, eyes closed in the vague hope that his body will think it's getting more sleep. But even years of wearing contacts haven't left him able to put them in in near darkness, unfortunately, so he blows out the candle and flips on the light switch, wincing at the sudden bright whiteness of the room. The task is quick, though, and he sings along with the CD as he digs through his laundry piling system in the bedroom for a pair of jeans and a shirt that are mostly clean.

He's unlocked the door and is just tying his shoelaces when Sean knocks, so he calls out, "Come in," and finishes up, shrugging into his jacket and ducking back into the bathroom to push the stop button on the CD player and eject the disc, replacing it with the next CD in the stack so that it's ready for tomorrow morning. _Souls for Sale_ goes back in its case and then into his jacket pocket so he can listen to it in the car, where Sean will protest that it's too early for something that loud and he'll tease back about Sean being old.

On the set, Elijah's day is the familiar wait, wait, wait, do a few takes and wait some more, have lunch, do a few more takes and wait again that's the norm for an actor in an ensemble film, and he takes advantage of the interminable time between takes to chain-smoke and formulate his plan of attack when it comes to Viggo.

As soon as Pete calls an end to shooting for the day, he puts his plan into motion, ditching the other hobbits and catching up to Viggo, who's on his way to the cuntebago. "Hey, Viggo," he says, loud enough to be heard by his quarry, but soft enough not to attract the unwanted attention of any stray elves or hobbits. "You said something about a Belgian restaurant you wanted me to try. You want to go there for dinner tonight?" Elijah smiles, trying for mostly innocent but with a hint of flirting. He doesn't want to scare Viggo off, but he also doesn't want Viggo to be surprised by his pass at the end of the evening.

Cool blue-green eyes look him up an down once, and then Viggo says, "Yeah, sure. Just us, or should I notify the usual suspects?"

And Elijah thinks maybe he overdid the flirt a little, but that's okay because it gives him the opportunity to say, "Just us, I think," before grinning and turning to jog toward the hobbits' trailer, tossing over his shoulder, "I'll meet you at your car in an hour, okay?"

He doesn't check to see Viggo's reaction. He's got a good feeling about this.

The feeling's even better an hour later when—after turning down numerous invites to join various factions for assorted combinations of dinner and Saturday-night partying—he's standing next to Viggo's car with Viggo holding the door open for him to get in, and that kind of chivalry is very different from anything Elijah's used to.

Dinner goes well—Viggo's right that the restaurant is incredible; Elijah has a lamb roast with red currant sauce that's to die for, accompanied by a rich lambic ale—and the company is nice, if a little long-winded. They're talking photography now, over dessert, and Elijah doesn't know an f-stop from a stop bath, but Viggo's happy to explain. Ad nauseum. And Elijah's glad his camera's digital, the settings fairly automated and the pictures easy enough to capture and save to his Powerbook's hard drive.

But Viggo's good at what he does, his photographs as far above Elijah's occasionally blurry or overexposed snapshots as his performance in front of the camera is above Elijah's first uncertain modeling and commercial work. Which is to say, a lot.

And then they're back in Viggo's car, heading toward Elijah's apartment, except that Viggo's looking out the windshield and up, examining the huge, silvery moon that hangs overhead, and then he's turning the steering wheel a little abruptly and they're no longer on the familiar route. Elijah looks inquiringly at Viggo, but Viggo only smiles enigmatically and Elijah decides not to break the comfortable silence that's descended, content instead to sit back and watch the landscape pass by, the homes and businesses thinning and being replaced by trees.

Slowly he realizes that the road and the trees are familiar—a "park" that they'd filmed in that's like no park Elijah's ever seen back home, but more like a forest wilderness—and then Viggo stops the car at the side of the road, turning the engine off and looking to Elijah.

Who knows a cue when he sees one and, despite the butterflies in his stomach and the part of him that's trying to tell him this is insanity, he leans closer to Viggo, closing his eyes as their lips meet.

Elijah's not surprised that Viggo's a good kisser, but he _is_ surprised at the passion behind the kiss. He feels a sound catch in his throat, and then Viggo's hands are gentle on either side of his face, cupping his jaw, fingers warm against his neck. And then the sound isn't trapped anymore, but is a low moan that seems to fill up the near-silence in the car, and Elijah's fingers are on the buttons of Viggo's shirt and he's resisting the urge to push Viggo back and climb on top of him because, honestly, there's not enough room in here for what he wants to do and Viggo's sword—the actual metal one, that is—is in the way between the front seats and then Viggo is pushing him gently backwards.

"I want to show you something," he says, opening his door and flooding the car with the harsh, artificial yellow of the interior light, and Elijah has to take a deep breath to pull himself together before he can follow suit.

When he gets out of the car Viggo's rummaging in the trunk, finally coming up with a neatly folded blanket. Elijah thinks about asking if Viggo needs his sword, then decides that it would make him feel silly if Viggo said no and uncomfortable if Viggo said yes, so he doesn't. And then Viggo's in front of him again, fingertips tilting Elijah's head up for a quick, soft kiss before taking one of his hands and leading him away from the road, through some light underbrush and, finally, onto a narrow footpath. The silence continues as they walk, the path barely lit enough by moonlight for Elijah to see where he's going, and then they're stepping off the path and into the trees, Elijah tightening his grip on Viggo's hand and walking very carefully now because the last thing he needs is to break an ankle. Pete would kill him.

And then, between one step and the next, they're standing at the edge of a clearing, a meadow silvery-bright in front of them.

"Wow," Elijah whispers, glad he came and glad Viggo's got an eye for this kind of natural/preternatural beauty.

Viggo spreads the blanket out in the middle of the clearing and Elijah sits, suddenly awkward because it's one thing to just stop a car and start making out, but it's another to walk for ten minutes and put down a blanket with the express intention of fucking, and for a moment Elijah wonders what he's got himself into, wonders if maybe this whole thing wasn't such a great idea after all. Then Viggo's kissing him and he's not thinking of anything except that Viggo kisses with the same single-mindedness that he does everything with, which leads to a brief contemplation of how Viggo might fuck before Elijah is distracted by strong hands tugging his shirt off over his head and then everything becomes about skin.

About pressing as much of his skin against Viggo's as possible, about tasting the soft flesh between Viggo's thumb and index finger, about the scratch of Viggo's stubbled cheek against his neck and throat.

About feeling Viggo's sword-callused fingers against his cock.

And Elijah gasps at that, because when had his jeans gotten undone and it's difficult to think coherently with Viggo's thumb sliding just there...and he arches up under the touch, wanting moreharderplease but having a fucking hard time finding any words at all, and then Viggo's hand moves away, moves to Elijah's chest, soothing and gentling him like he was a spooked horse.

"Slow down," whispered against his ear and it should make him feel like and overly horny teenager—chastened and embarrassed—but it doesn't.

Elijah takes a slow, deliberate breath, and opens his eyes, looking up into the shadows of Viggo's face. Yes, Elijah wants this to last, wants to remember every move, every touch that happens tonight. He nods and reaches out to the front of Viggo's shirt again and starts working the buttons out through the button-holes, taking his time and leaning up to explore every inch of newly bared skin.

After a minute the position becomes awkward, so he puts one hand flat on Viggo's chest and pushes gently. Viggo gets the hint and lies back and now Elijah's leaning over him and the moonlight is tracing the planes of Viggo's face and body in silver and black and Elijah stops to just look for a moment because he thinks he can maybe see what Viggo sees when he takes a photograph.

Then Viggo's hands are on him again and the moment is gone and in its place is a series of new and different moments, each made up of touch and taste and need.

Elijah shifts until he's straddling Viggo's thighs, his palms flat against the hard, muscled expanse of Viggo's chest, feeling the definition beneath his fingertips as he traces down over pecs and obliques and when the fuck did he get enough into muscle boys to pick up the lingo?

But the question really isn't important, because his fingers have reached the waistband of Viggo's jeans and he's tracing beneath the edge, the sound of Viggo's ragged breathing sending jolts of electricity to his cock, and he's thinking about continuing with the teasing except he feels Viggo's hand back on his cock and he thinks it's too easy for the casual cruelty of teasing to go both ways.

Before he can really make up his mind, though, Viggo's whispering, "Elijah," and Elijah's fingers are fumbling, nerveless, on the button and zipper of Viggo's jeans and then Viggo's helping—arching up effortlessly as though Elijah's weight on his thighs is nothing—and pushing the fabric down past his hips. And then Elijah's thinking of this morning in the shower and he needs to see if sucking cock feels and tastes as good as he remembers, so he's shifting down Viggo's legs, leaving a trail of gentle bites and apologetic licks down Viggo's torso until his mouth is hovering above Viggo's cock.

Which puts him in an ideal position to realize that Viggo's uncut, and he's never actually been this close to an uncut guy so he takes the opportunity to explore a little—fingers testing out how far Viggo's foreskin will move when he's this hard, tongue mapping the differences in texture—and it's all fascinating and sexy as hell. But Viggo's panting now, a series of soft moans as his fingers tangle in Elijah's hair, and Elijah takes that as a hint, swallowing Viggo's cock as far as he can in one quick motion.

"Je...Chri...fu...."

And Elijah's hand is on his own cock because Viggo's incoherence is both flattering and really fucking hot, and the slick-hard feel of a cock against his tongue is even better than he'd remembered, even better than he'd fantasized this morning.

So he's close, really fucking close, when Viggo's whispered, "Wait, slow down," puts the brakes on and Elijah is screeching to a halt, cursing his fucking 18-year-old hormones and trying desperately to gather himself into something that at least vaguely resembles mature and collected.

To buy himself time, he slides his way back up Viggo's body, acutely aware—in an entirely different way this time—of Viggo's well-muscled chest and abs. Because Viggo's tanned, chiseled torso is so very different from his own pale body with its traces of baby fat around the middle and he's absolutely certain that this is not the thing to be thinking about right now since he's got a pretty good idea that a bout of low self-esteem is going to be a major turn-off, especially for someone like Viggo, who's got serenity down to an art form.

Elijah conveniently forgets that Viggo's got sudden fits of temper down to an art form, too, because it's just so much easier to focus on his own flaws at the moment. At least until Viggo rolls them over, propping himself over Elijah on his elbows and turning what feels like his whole attention to the apparent task of memorizing Elijah's mouth in detail, and then all thought—of flaws and everything else—evaporates like so much mist in the face of the sun.

But just when Elijah feels he's in danger of being kissed to within an inch of his life, Viggo presses one last gentle kiss to the end of Elijah's nose and rolls over. Elijah opens his mouth to call Viggo a tease or to complain about the nonexistent chill, except Viggo's sitting up, slipping off his shoes and his jeans, and suddenly that seems like a fantastic idea to Elijah and so he toes off his sneakers, lying back onto the blanket and arching his hips to get his jeans and boxers off.

Which is exactly the vulnerable position he's in when suddenly Viggo's pressing down on him, body heavy, warm and hard against Elijah's, and Elijah collapses back onto the ground, Viggo following him down, covering him and making him feel something that wavers between cherished and claustrophobic. Just as Elijah's about to say something, to push Viggo away so he can catch his breath, Viggo shifts up a little and slides a hand between them, grasping both of their cocks with slicked fingers and where the fuck did the lube come from?

And, fuck, it doesn't matter. It's. Not. Important.

What is important is that Viggo's hand is gone but now their cocks are sliding together, shifting slickly between them, and Elijah doesn't feel either cherished or claustrophobic anymore, he just feels hotwettight. Viggo's returned to his exploration of Elijah's mouth and Elijah's hands move of their own volition to Viggo's back and Elijah's lucky to just be hanging on at this point, because the slickhardslide is almost overwhelmingly intense.

But Viggo's keeping the pace slow and easy, which is almost worse by Elijah's standards than the fast and furious adolescent gropings he's mostly been involved in to date because it keeps him hovering at the edge of coming until it feels like he's going to be turned inside out. Until finally the sensation has built and built to the point where all the slow and easy in the world isn't going to stop the lines of fire threading their way out of his balls and then inside out is the least of the sensations and he thinks he's making sounds, though he's trying to be reasonably quiet because he doesn't know if there's anyone else nearby and the scandal if they got caught—public lewdness and who knows what else they'd be charged with—could probably induce violence even in someone as mild-mannered as Pete.

Which is when Elijah realizes he's managing to worry about work right after a stunning orgasm, and he's not quite sure what that means but he suspects it's some kind of indication that no matter how mind-blowing the sex is, Viggo's probably not The One. Or else Elijah's just too neurotic for words, but he really doesn't think he's _that_ bad.

And sometime during that period of introspection, Viggo came and Elijah didn't even notice, which he thinks probably classifies him as a lousy lover and possibly an asshole in general and he's starting to feel really guilty when Viggo rolls off to lie beside him, staring up at the stars.

So what's the etiquette now? Should he compliment Viggo's technique—which was pretty fucking incredible, after all—or just ride out the afterglow in silence?

But Viggo makes the decision for him, sitting up and tugging one corner of the blanket over to mop up the rapidly cooling mess on Elijah's abdomen—more of his peculiar brand of chivalry—and then doing the same for himself with a clean bit of blanket. Then Viggo's pulling on his jeans and shirt, hunching forward to tie his shoelaces, and Elijah starts to gather his own clothes. As he reaches for one far-flung sneaker, his hand finds a foil packet and he lifts it closer to his face to peer at it. Lube. He grins, that particular mystery solved.

He waves the packet in Viggo's direction. "Pretty cocky, weren't you?" he says with a grin.

Viggo grins back. "I think I'd categorize it more as optimistically hopeful." Viggo's tone is light and friendly, and that dispels any worries Elijah has about an awkward morning-after or about having to let Viggo down easy.

This was just a one-night-stand, and they'll slide back into working together without a problem.

  


* * *

Elijah's dreaming of a mystery lover, someone whose hands feel like they were made to touch Elijah's body, whose mouth is hot and electric on his, and Elijah's moments away from coming in his dream-lover's arms when his fucking alarm blares and he sits straight up in bed, heart pounding and adrenaline shooting through him.

It takes him a second to get his bearings and reach out to shut off his clock, and then his hand misses the switch and his glasses clatter to the floor. Eventually he gets the alarm shut off and what the fuck? Because he's almost one hundred percent sure he didn't set it last night, since today is Sunday and he wanted desperately to sleep in.

Fuck.

He falls back against the pillow and closes his eyes experimentally. It doesn't take long before he's starting to float and he's vaguely pleased that going back to sleep is apparently an option today.

At least until someone starts pounding on his door and this is just not his fucking day is it?

When the pounding finally gets to the point where it's irritating Elijah more than he can ignore, he gets out of bed and stumbles blearily to the door. It's Sean.

"What the fuck is your problem?" Elijah says, belatedly realizing that it's probably not a good idea to swear at someone you've got to work closely with for the next year or more.

Sean looks more than a little surprised—at least Elijah thinks he does, but things are fuzzy without his glasses. Which he knocked down off his clock this morning. Except that he'd knocked them down _yesterday_ morning and hadn't picked them up, so how the fuck had they gotten back there?

He's so wrapped up in his thoughts that he almost misses Sean's answer, which is a surprisingly polite, "Picking your ass up so you're not late," and that derails him because he _knows_ it's Sunday and they've got the day off.

"But it's Sunday," he says, as if challenging Sean to contradict him.

Sean does. "Maybe on your planet, but here on Earth it's Saturday morning and we've got an early call." Then, with a suspicious look that reminds Elijah uncomfortably of his mother, Sean peers at him and asks, "Are you on something?"

Elijah shakes his head, though whether he's denying substance abuse or trying to clear his thoughts he's not sure. If it were anyone but Sean, he'd think this was a practical joke, but Sean seems to think it's his job to take care of Elijah the way Sam takes care of Frodo.

So he says, "Um, okay, if you say so. Do I have time for a quick shower?"

Sean nods. "I'll find you something to wear and rustle up some breakfast."

And Elijah distinctly remembers trying to avoid this whole situation yesterday morning. "Don't get something from the closet. There's a pair of jeans on the chair in my bedroom and a gray Adidas t-shirt on the floor at the foot of the bed," he says over his shoulder on the way to the shower, hoping Sean will actually listen to him. "And don't bother looking for food, because I haven't shopped. I'll have to grab a coffee when we get there."

Once in the bathroom, he flips the light switch. No point in trying to ease himself into wakefulness this morning. He pushes play on the CD player and is surprised to hear the first few notes of "Hot Blood." He stops it, opens the player and checks the CD. _Souls for Sale_. That was yesterday morning's CD, which he forgot in Sean's car and so there's no way it can be here now, and things are really starting to go all _Twilight Zone_ on him.

He showers quickly, deals with contacts and brushing his teeth, and steps out into the hallway wearing his towel around his waist. Sean is moving from the bedroom—"Clothes are on the bed," he says in passing—toward the kitchen, and without quite knowing why, Elijah's saying, "Really, Sean, don't worry about breakfast. Billy got the canteen to stock oatmeal, so I'll have that today."

Sean stops. "Cool. When did he finally manage it?"

And Elijah has to turn away, head for the bedroom and his waiting clothes, because he doesn't want Sean to see his confusion or read the lie in his face. "I don't know," he says, knowing that the truth is 'today' but there's no way he could know that and when did his life get so fucking strange?

Apparently Sean accepts this answer, because he doesn't say anything else but simply waits for Elijah to come back out and grab his coat so they can leave.

It's not until they're in the car and moving that Elijah realizes he left his CD behind, still in the player, and he wonders if his subconscious is trying to make excuses for the major _déjà vu_ he's been experiencing. He's suddenly reminded of that Bill Murray movie— _Groundhog Day_ —and wonders if he's going crazy or if the universe is.

There was one way to find out.

"Sean, did I hang out with you guys last night?" he asks, watching Sean's expression carefully.

Brown eyes glance at him once, then twice, and Sean gets that same 'are you on drugs?' look he had earlier. "You don't remember?" he asks Elijah, his voice too casual.

Elijah thinks fast. "Well, I remember going to dinner and then drinking at the bar for a while, but these six-day workweeks have got everything blurring together in my memory, so I wasn't absolutely sure it was last night."

Apparently this satisfies Sean, who turns his full attention back to driving. "Yeah, that was last night. Dinner and drinking. You should probably get more sleep, y'know? Think about making an early night of it tonight."

"I probably will," Elijah answers, knowing that if it turns out he's reliving today he's going to ask out another of the guys on his list. Just because Viggo turned out not to be what he was looking for doesn't mean that he won't find it tonight. After all, there's got to be a _reason_ why Saturday is repeating for him, and to help him find a boyfriend is as good a reason as any other he can think of.

If he has any lingering doubts that he's already lived this day once, the call sheet dispels them. The up side to the situation is that he already knows what Pete's looking for in each shot, so he's on the money the first or second take every time, which means they wrap for the day almost an hour earlier than "Saturday, take 1."

As the hobbits head for the make-up trailer, Dom grabs Elijah's ass and makes him squeak—which hadn't happened the first time around, probably because Elijah had ducked out to talk to Viggo—and then puts on the most unbelievable innocent expression Elijah has ever seen.

Elijah decides it's a sign. "So, Monaghan," he says, slowing down to put them further away from their fellow hobbits, "are you..." a pause while he searches his memory for the great bit of slang Orlando had used recently "...all mouth and trousers, or do you intend to follow through on that groping you keep doing?"

And Dom looks like he's about to choke, though Elijah can't be sure whether it's from surprise at Elijah's sudden hardcore flirting or from amusement at the familiar slang delivered in an American accent. When Dom finally recovers, he's stopped in his tracks and Elijah, a couple of steps ahead, stops too, and turns back to face him.

"Well?" Elijah prompts.

And Dom's really recovered, because he smiles a sexy smile that Elijah's seen him use on women in the pub, and says, "Let no one say Dominic Monaghan is a pricktease. What sort of follow-through did you have in mind?"

Elijah's apparently feeling uncharacteristically bold and invulnerable, which is probably the effects of having his life running on endless-loop right now, and so he takes a long drag on his cigarette and says, "The kind where we go to your place for dinner and end up fucking on the kitchen table before ordering out for a pizza."

Dom's eyes widen, but he seems to be taking Elijah's proposition seriously. "Yeah," he says after a moment, "I think I can provide that sort of follow-through."

And without another word they continue on to the make-up trailer, neither looking at the other.

Just like last time, Elijah is deluged with invitations to go on various casual Saturday night social outings, and just like last time he turns them all down.

Once inside Dom and Billy's house, the silence is awkward, with Dom sliding Elijah quick looks out of the corner of his eye. Finally, Elijah has to break the tension, so he says, "For someone who's always grabbing my ass, you're pretty unenthusiastic once you've got me alone."

Dom kind of laughs at that, but Elijah can tell he's still uncomfortable, so he tries again. "So, where's this kitchen table we're supposed to be fucking on? I'd like to check out its structural integrity before I trust my life—or, more importantly, my balls—to it."

"You're serious, aren't you, Elijah?" Dom says quietly, and Elijah wonders if he's made a mistake, if this whole thing isn't just one huge mistake. Until Dom steps forward and wraps himself around Elijah, all arms and hands and thrusting hips, his mouth finding the sensitive spot where Elijah's shoulder and neck meet, and then Elijah knows it's definitely not a mistake because he's melting into a puddle, his legs unwilling to support him under Dom's onslaught.

"Kitchen table's a bit dodgy," Dom says, between nips at Elijah's neck. "What say we try the bed?"

And Elijah has to agree that the bed—soft and horizontal, two of his favorite things at the moment—sounds fantastic, so he allows Dom to move them, slow and occasionally stumbling, across the room and through the doorway into Dom's bedroom. Reaching for the hem of Dom's shirt, he tugs it up and they disentangle long enough to shed t-shirts, shoes, jeans, and underwear before Dom trips him and he falls back onto the bed.

"Oh, yeah," Dom breathes, crawling onto the bed and up Elijah's body, and there's a sense of urgency and passion in the motion that perfectly matches how Elijah feels.

And then Dom stops halfway up and how Elijah feels changes drastically with Dom's mouth wrapped around his cock and fuck, if he'd known Dom was this good at cocksucking, Elijah would've taken him up on the not-so-subtle invitation months ago. He's pretty sure Dom's going to make him lose it if he keeps that up, so he says, "Dom?" and his voice squeaks a little but he's really beyond caring right now, at least until Dom stops and looks up and him and his brain starts to function again.

"Yeah?"

"You keep doing that and it's all going to be over in an embarrassingly short amount of time, man."

Dom grins at him, the cocky-yet-adorable expression that gets him so many girls when they go out—and earns him his fair share of threats from the girls' pissed-off boyfriends, too. "Well," Dom says, "we wouldn't want it over too quickly, would we? I seem to recall a promise of fucking, after all."

And suddenly Elijah feels a little out of his depth, because even though he'd been the one making rash promises, his practical experience with other guys was limited to a handful of blowjobs (okay, a _large_ handful, but still) and what he and Viggo had—or hadn't, and this reset-button thing that his life has going on now is fucking irritating—done last night. It's probably important to let Dom in on the (non-freaky portion) of the facts, so he says, "I've never actually—"

"No problem," Dom interrupts. "I'll talk you through it. It's really not that different from being with a bird." He pauses then and looks suspiciously at Elijah. "You _have_ been with birds, yeah?"

And that's when it begins to dawn on Elijah that Dom's planning to _get_ fucked, not to fuck _him_ , and that's a lot easier for him to wrap his brain around at the moment. He nods at Dom, then adds, "Yeah."

Dom mumbles something that sounds suspiciously like, "And he says _I'm_ all mouth and trousers," as he's stretching over Elijah, reaching for the nightstand drawer, so Elijah really has no choice but to tickle him.

It earns him a loud squawk and an unintentional but still fucking painful elbow to the ribs. He holds up his hands like he's trying to ward off an attack, and says, "Truce!"

Which makes Dom collapse on him, laughing. When they've both caught their breath and are lying together on the bed in a tangle of limbs, Elijah says, "Not exactly how you pictured tonight, is it?"

Because he's comfortable here with Dom—even naked—but it's a different kind of comfortable than he was hoping for, a "mates" in the British sense rather than "mates" in the American, significant-other sense, and he's pretty sure Dom feels the same way.

"Not quite, no," Dom admits. "D'you want me to drive you home?" There's nothing but open friendliness in Dom's expression, but Elijah thinks he can hear just a hint of regret in Dom's voice. And he can't see how a buddy-fuck would be a bad thing here, considering how far they've already gotten, so he slides one hand down his chest and over his stomach to stroke his cock, and gives Dom his best seductive look.

"Why waste a couple of perfectly good hard-ons? Unless you want me to go...?" he says, leaving Dom the out, just in case he's read this wrong.

But he hasn't, because Dom grins and licks his lips in an exaggerated show of lewdness and tackles him—very carefully, Elijah notices—and it feels good to be pressed up against Dom, skin against skin. He feels Dom shift against him and then he hears the whisper against his ear, "So, is it safe for me to reach for the condoms and lube again, or do I need to tie you up first?"

And honestly, Elijah's never thought much about bondage up to that point, but now Dom's joking words draw a shudder from him and his cock twitches against Dom in a way that really has only one interpretation, so Elijah really hopes Dom's not too turned off by the idea.

Dom's low chuckle reassures him on that point at least. "Kinky bastard."

Which makes Elijah feel like he should...defend his honor or something, so he says, "Hey, you're the one who brought it up," but he can tell even before he finishes getting the words out that it's a lost cause, because Dom is leering at him and he's never, _never_ going to live this down. Dom will print up flyers with Elijah's photo on them and a headline with a pun so bad that Elijah can't even think of it right now, and then there'll be yet another Wood joke that everyone and their brother will think is hilarious to torment him with.

"But who was it did the propositioning here? I distinctly recall you coming out of nowhere with an offer to bugger me over my own kitchen table."

Dom's surreptitiously moving away as he's talking, but Elijah catches on and wonders whether his first impulse is insane. Of course, he's living in a plot device from a Bill Murray movie, so he supposes that sanity really isn't an option right now, so he says, "Dom, if you're going to get rope or something, just fucking do it before I change my mind." As the words come out, he hears the sharp edge to his voice and he tries to temper it with a smile. Dom still hesitates, so he adds, "Ignore me. You know what I mean, right? If you want to get something, go ahead." He raises his hands above his head, crossing his wrists together against the headboard. "I'm not going anywhere."

Dom's eyes close for a second, so Elijah knows it was the right move, and then Dom's rummaging in the drawer of the nightstand, tossing a bottle of lube and a box of condoms over his shoulder onto the bed. When he turns around, he's holding a handful of black satin cords, and Elijah's cock jumps again, and when the fuck had he developed _this_ particular kink? Because you'd think he'd have noticed before now.

And then Dom's straddling his chest, wrapping the cord around his wrists, and Elijah can't resist lifting his head a little and licking a stripe up Dom's cock—nipping gently at his foreskin—while Dom is distracted. Elijah gets a satisfying hiss in response and Dom tugs a little harder than necessary on Elijah's bound wrists and it's uncomfortable and hot in equal amounts. "Oh yeah," he says, the words out before he even realizes he's spoken, and then Dom's shifting down again until he's sitting on Elijah's thighs, his fingers tracing lightly down Elijah's chest and stomach before coming to rest on Elijah's cock, which is starting to ache.

So Elijah arches up into the touch, frustrated by the reduction in leverage caused by his wrists being tied to the top of the headboard, but Dom pulls back further. "Patience," Dom chides. "What happened to not wanting this over 'embarrassingly quickly'?"

"Fuck that," Elijah says with feeling. "Just touch me."

He writhes under Dom to emphasize his point, and Dom either takes pity on him or wants it as much as Elijah does, because he reaches for the box of condoms and pulls out one packet, deftly tearing it open. In a single, smooth movement, Dom slips the condom on Elijah's cock and unrolls it, his touch sending shivers down Elijah's spine.

"You're amazing, d'you know that?" Dom asks as Elijah's shudders subside. "You should make pornos."

And Elijah's pretty sure Dom's joking, but he's oddly flattered by the bizarre semi-compliment. "I think I'll just wait until my career options are narrowed down to that or talk-radio personality before I seriously consider it, if you don't mind."

Dom laughs and reaches for the lube. "You ever see _Fright Night_? That's what what's-his-name, the sidekick—"

"Evil Ed?" Elijah supplies.

"Yeah, him. That's what he's been doing since the early '90s—gay pornos." Dom drizzles lube into his palm and strokes Elijah's cock, slicking the condom up and making Elijah arch involuntarily.

"And how do you," Elijah gets out as Dom removes his hand and drizzles more lube onto his fingertips, "know that?"

"Rented some of 'em." Dom reaches behind himself and his breathing changes drastically. Elijah closes his eyes and imagines watching those slick fingers sliding into Dom's ass, preparing himself for Elijah's cock. "Bloody awful films with bloody awful titles. _Mechanics Bi Day, Lube Job Bi Night_ , _Latin Crotch Rockets_ , _Butt Blazer_."

And Elijah's tempted to laugh at the surrealism of it all, except Dom's moved forward and is holding Elijah's cock, aiming it as he lowers himself down and it's so tight and Elijah wants to touch and his wrists are chafing under the cords and it all feels so good that he thinks he might just come right now. "Wait, stop."

Dom stops, frozen where he is, and Elijah closes his eyes, thinking about the least appealing things he can manage—Hemingway and geometry and Gizmo, sitting in the terrarium and watching them. It helps, the almost overwhelming heat in his balls slowly receding, and he says, "Okay, that was just too close."

"I can move?"

"You can move." Elijah's silent for a moment as Dom lowers himself further, sheathing Elijah's cock balls-deep in tight heat and it feels fucking amazing, absolutely fucking brilliant.

Dom sets a good pace and Elijah drops into the rhythm, thrusting as much as his wrists will allow, his knees pulled up a little and his feet braced on the bed. And Dom's stroking his own cock as he rides Elijah's, and Elijah really wants the use of his hands back right now, wants to reach out and feel the hard curve of Dom's cock under his fingers, wants to make a race of it to see if he can make Dom come before Dom makes him come.

He shifts his hips, working for a better angle, and Dom lets out an "oh" that's not so much a word as a sensation turned into sound. Elijah's nipples are hard and his balls are tight and it's not going to be much longer, so he tries for the same angle again, putting all the force he can manage behind it, ignoring the burning of his shoulders and the stinging of his wrists because the only thing that matters is that broken-sounding "oh" that comes from Dom with every thrust.

"Yeah," he says, "like that, Dom. Just like that," and then Dom's voice is rougher and the "oh" is drawn out into one long moan as Elijah feels Dom begin to clench around his cock, feels warm spatters of spunk on his chest and stomach, and then Elijah's coming hard, for the first time understanding where comparisons to freight trains might be more than just hyperbole.

He wants to melt into the bed except that now his arms are really starting to protest and it's just painful and not arousing in the least, and he's getting ready to say something when Dom leans forward and tugs on one dangling end of the cord and the whole thing comes loose at once, Elijah's wrists and his shoulders burning from the strain. He's still massaging life back into his wrists when Dom slips off him, slides the condom off and trashes it, then lies down on the bed beside him with an artless yawn.

"You want that lift home now?" Dom asks, handing over a box of tissues from on top of the bedside table and Elijah uses a handful of them to clean himself off.

"I'm okay with crashing here, if you don't mind," he says, thinking about how tired Dom looks and how much he doesn't want to get dressed and go back outside tonight.

"Shift up, then, so we can get under the duvet," is all Dom says, but his grin is eloquent enough for Elijah, who scoots up the bed and then slides back down under the covers, where Dom flings an arm and leg over him and it's really nice to be curled up and falling asleep in someone's arms.  


  


* * *

Arms wrap around Elijah's waist and he snuggles back into a well-muscled chest, hissing as teeth close—hard, but not _too_ hard—on his shoulder, and now he realizes that the insistent pressure against the back of his thigh is a hard cock—

—and the buzz of his alarm jolts him awake, heart thudding in his chest and adrenaline tingling in the tips of his fingers as he fumbles for the fucking snooze button, knocking his glasses to the floor in the process, and he's getting really fucking tired of this routine already.

But he gets up anyway, because "Saturday, take 3" is going to happen whether or not he wants it to, and as long as he knows what's going on in advance he can at least avoid the parts he doesn't want to deal with—like Sean's mother-hen act.

When all of this is over, though, he's going to have to do something really nice for Sean, because he's been thinking way too many uncharitable thoughts lately and Sean really doesn't deserve the flack, even if he never actually knows he's getting it.

Elijah's halfway through his shower—with the CD changed _first_ this time, because he likes Verbena but there is such a thing as too much—before he realizes that he's planning out his day to make things go as smoothly as possible so he can hit on number three on his list, and suddenly he's feeling like the world's biggest slut because he's apparently sleeping his way though the entire ensemble cast of a movie.

He really doesn't have time to think about it now, though, because Sean will be here any minute and he needs to be ready to go. And it's not like he doesn't know whether or not he'll have time to work out exactly how he feels today; he knows precisely how much waiting he's going to be doing.

Except it doesn't quite work out that way, because even though he knows what will make Pete happy with every shot, he still has to get to the right emotional place to deliver it, and that doesn't leave a lot of time for deep introspection. Which is why he's heading for his trailer, paper plate of sandwiches and chips in one hand, lit cigarette in the other, with the other hobbits' laughter at some joke or other that Billy had made fading behind him.

But he's barely had a chance to sit down before there's a knock at the door and when he opens it it's apparent that that he's not really meant to think about whether or not he wants to continue with his string of kamikaze seductions, because the figure at the door is Sean Bean.

Elijah's beginning to feel like the universe is spiraling completely out of his fucking control because he wasn't even given a chance to decide if he's going to pursue another in what is turning into an increasingly long line of (admittedly potentially nonexistent in the greater scheme of things, but still) one-night stands. And Bean's still standing outside the trailer, looking at Elijah expectantly and what the fuck is he supposed to do about _that_? So he does pretty much the only thing he thinks he _can_ do, given the bizarre circumstances: he invites Bachelor Number Three in.

Bean takes one look at the untouched plate on the table and says, "I'm interrupting your meal. I'll go."

Much as he'd like to take advantage of the sudden, miraculous reprieve, he has an unsettling feeling that if he does he'll just end up in a similar situation during the next iteration of today. The universe seems determined to...do whatever the fuck it's doing. Play matchmaker for him? Teach him that it's a really bad idea to fuck your co-workers? Drive him to suicide out of sheer frustration at having to do the same thing day after day after day? Well, okay, that last one was facetious, but he can't believe he's actually considering the others as plausible explanations for the fucked-up direction his life has taken lately.

And Bean is turning to go, so he's got to say something now or say it "tomorrow," and the sooner this is all over the better. "No, it's okay. Have a seat. You want some chips? Er, crisps?" he corrects himself.

Bean sits, but he's looking like someone who's made a really rash decision and is now regretting it with every fiber of his being, and Elijah's not sure what he can do to ease the situation, so he sits down as well and reaches for a sandwich.

"I wanted to thank you, by the way," he says, halting the sandwich halfway to his mouth. "It's really great to have such emotional depth to play off of. A lot of actors really phone in their over-the-shoulder shots, but you're always right there, giving one hundred and ten percent."

Elijah'd hoped his comments would put Bean more at ease, but if anything he's looking more nervous, more uncomfortable than before. Putting the sandwich back down, untouched, Elijah hazards a guess as to what's bothering Bean. "Is that why you're here? Because I'm okay with constructive criticism. If you think there's something I could be doing better, I'd be happy to listen."

And he barely gets the last word out because Bean's leaning across the small table and kissing him and that's a fucking huge surprise since Elijah'd really expected to flirt with him and be told—politely but firmly—that Bean was flattered but straight. After all, the man has three ex-wives and at least a couple of kids.

Maybe the overabundance of ex-wives should have clued Elijah in, though, because with the way Bean's kissing him there's no way he's straight.

But then Bean's leaning back, standing as if to go, and that is _definitely_ not in Elijah's copy of the script, so he stands, too, and closes the distance between them.

"I'm sorry," Bean says softly. "I shouldn't've come."

"I'm not," Elijah answers. "Sorry, that is. You can leave if you really want to, or you can stick around and finish what you started. I know which one I'd prefer." And Bean doesn't answer, at least not in words, but Elijah finds himself suddenly pressed between a wall of cabinets in the trailer's tiny kitchen and the length of Bean's body.

Elijah wants to say something, anything, to defuse a little bit of the intensity being focused on him, but he's afraid he'll ruin the moment and it's such a _good_ moment, what with Bean's hands deftly working at the fastenings on their costumes until they're skin-to-skin and Elijah's even happier than usual that today is a no-feet day because he can toe off his sneakers and kick off the pants easily.

He doesn't know what Bean's got planned, but he knows what he wants, what's been in the back of his mind since he watched Dom ride his cock last night, and so he reaches behind him and pulls out a condom from the drawer filled almost to overflowing with all varieties of them—a joke, courtesy of Dom, who would probably be shocked to see Elijah actually using one, and with Sean Bean of all people—and presses it, with a whispered, "Please," into Bean's hand.

Bean.

Who's looking down at him with that same hunger that Elijah's gotten used to seeing from him on-set, directed at Frodo and the Ring, except now Elijah's starting to wonder whether Bean was really ever acting at all because there are no cameras here now, and no Ring. There's just Elijah, but Bean is still staring at him like Elijah's the answer to his prayers, and it's kind of like being on set, except Elijah doesn't know his lines and he's pretty sure he's never going to be begging to be fucked while on camera. At least not so long as his career does better than Evil Ed's, and that thought makes him want to giggle, which would've been okay with Dom but is absolutely the wrong thing to do with Bean, who's really intense right now, yeah, but still has an undercurrent of skittishness, like the least thing could cause him to bolt.

And he still hasn't moved, so Elijah says quietly, "Sean?" and it's like Bean's been pulled out of a dream, because he looks down at the condom packet in his hand and then back to Elijah.

"Are you sure?" he asks, and Elijah appreciates the concern even while wanting to shout, "Just fuck me already," at him.

But he restrains himself and says, "As sure as I can be without having done it before, yeah," which was probably the wrong thing to say, the kind of thing that could spook someone who's skittish, and for just a moment Bean looks like he's going to bolt, so Elijah continues, "Yeah, I want to. And while it's a fantasy of mine to be fucked up against a wall," he takes Bean's hand, tugging him toward the back of the trailer, "I think a bed's probably better for the first time."

Bean doesn't resist and then they're beside the bed and there's still a lingering awkwardness, but Elijah knows just how to dispel that, and so he slides to his knees and takes Bean's hard, jutting cock into his mouth, swallows it deep into the back of his throat and hears Bean moan above him. And yeah, _this_ he's confident about and he's pretty sure he can get Bean back into the groove, if the sounds he's hearing are any indication.

And sure enough, he's been sucking Bean's cock for less than a minute when he's pushed away, toward the bed, and he reaches under the edge of the bed to grab the tube of KY before crawling up onto the quilt and turning to look back at Bean, who's got that hungry look again.

"How do you want me?" Elijah asks.

Bean's breath hitches and he says, "Hard," and Elijah's cock is happy to oblige, though Elijah's pretty sure that's not what Bean meant.

It also doesn't quite answer the question Elijah was asking, but he'll take it because it sounds fucking amazing and he's so turned on that he thinks he might come right now if Bean doesn't stop looking at him that way, like Elijah's a banquet and Bean's a starving man.

And so Elijah rolls over onto his stomach, closing his eyes and trying to think of anything that'll take his arousal down a notch, except that the slide of the quilt under his hypersensitive cock is not helping in the least, and then Bean's kneeling over him, hands hot on Elijah's sweat-sticky skin, urging Elijah up onto his knees, which is probably a better idea anyway.

Except that once he's on his knees, Bean's fingers are tracing patterns over his ass, then pressing against his opening and he wants desperately to press back, to feel Bean inside him but he bites his lip and holds off, letting Bean move at his own speed. The hands disappear for a moment, and then return, slick and cool and sliding into him, breaching him smoothly and he reaches between his legs with the intention of tugging down on his balls, trying to stop the impending climax, but his hand brushes against his cock and then his hips are making tiny, involuntary thrusts and he's coming and, "Fuck," only he doesn't really mean to say it aloud.

And Bean whispers, "Christ," and Elijah's not sure whether it's a curse or a prayer, but Bean doesn't stop what he's doing and that's good because Elijah's nearly hard again and he's simultaneously thankful for being a horny teenage boy and _needing_ Bean to fuck him through the mattress.

And he didn't really mean to say that out loud, either, but apparently he did, because Bean groans and says, "Won't be able to if you make me come before I've even really touched you," but he slides his fingers out of Elijah and then something hard and blunt is pressing into him instead, and he can feel a burning sting but he _wants_ so much that he doesn't care and he's pushing back, trying to impale himself on Bean's cock, trying to get Bean as deep into his ass as he was into his throat a few minutes ago.

"Christ," Bean says again, and, "Just...just," but Elijah doesn't know what he should just do because Bean grabs hold of his hips and slams him back and yeah, just. Because this. This is just....

Just something. Something fucking amazing, and Bean pulls back then slams into him again, using his hands on Elijah's hips to add force to the thrust and Elijah can't think about anything except the cock that's pounding into him, the fingerprint bruises he's going to have in the morning, and how his cock is so hard it _hurts_.

And as if Bean read his mind, he reaches one hand around and wraps it around Elijah's cock, the other hand still setting a rhythm of harsh, pounding thrusts, and it only takes a few strokes combined with the feel of Bean's cock filling him and the sound of Bean's breathing—harsh and laced with grunts and moans—before Elijah's coming again, and again freight trains come to mind and, "Holyfuckingshit."

Then there's silence and stillness from behind him, a stillness that's all about tension and release, and then Bean's leaning over Elijah's back, his arms wrapped around Elijah's chest, and he's pulling them both over sideways until they're lying on the bed, Bean curled up behind him, his cock still buried to the hilt in Elijah.

The thought crosses Elijah's mind that Bean might just be a keeper. Because that was possibly the most mind-blowing sex Elijah's had in his life, and he could stand repeating that on a regular basis. Daily, even, and twice on Sunday.

And then there's a pounding on the trailer door, and they both jump at the interruption. "Five minutes, Wood."

Fuck.

They're going to be late, no question. Bean pulls out of him and stands, but Elijah's not sure his legs will support him yet, so he says, "Go ahead. You can have the first shot at the bathroom.

Bean goes.

Elijah stretches out on the bed for a minute, then drags himself up and over to the bathroom. "Sean?" he calls through the door, feeling silly about the formality considering they've just fucked, but some part of him is refusing to let go of the lessons in politeness that his mother has drummed into him over the years. He refuses to think about what she'd have to say about his present situation.

The door opens and Bean steps out, using a hand towel to dry where he'd obviously splashed water on himself in an attempt to clean up the most obvious signs of recent electrifying sex.

When Elijah's finished his own quick clean-up, he follows the trail of costume pieces, picking them up and putting them on as he goes. He's disappointed, but not really surprised, to find the trailer empty. Bean's just being practical—and probably admirably discreet—since it looks like Elijah's going to have to stop by the make-up trailer before he goes back on set.

He's almost got himself convinced that there's nothing to worry about by the time he gets back to the set, but then Bean won't look him in the eye. And he's willing to put that down to nerves or the fear that the rest of the cast will pick up on what they just did, but then Bean disappears almost before Pete finishes saying good-night and there's not really much else Elijah can make of that except that today was one fucking huge mistake.

And so when Sean says, "Meet you at the car in fifteen?" as they sit in matching chairs, the make-up techs removing last traces of their prosthetics, he shakes his head.

"I need a serious shower," he says. "I can catch a ride with someone else, or maybe a taxi."

He should've known that Sean wasn't going to let him get away with that. "Nah, I'll wait for you. Do you want to get dinner, or am I just taking you home?"

"Home." Even though he should be starving after his minimal breakfast and missing lunch, Elijah doesn't think he can face food right now, and he's actually hoping that he gets a chance at "Saturday, take 4."

Somehow, though, Elijah lets himself get talked into "a quick pint" with the other hobbits, and three beers (or was that four?) on an empty stomach is _not_ the best idea he's ever had. Ever the caretaker, Sean's steering Elijah into the car before he can get too drunk and humiliate himself terminally.

The next thing he knows, Sean's tucking him into bed. Elijah looks up at him. "Seanie?" He's not really sure what he wants to say; his mouth has kind of been on autopilot tonight.

"Yeah, 'lij?" Sean leans over him and suddenly it seems so perfectly clear to Elijah, so he wraps his arms around Sean's neck, pulls him down, and kisses him soundly.

Sean doesn't push him away, but he doesn't relax, either, and so Elijah stops, wondering how badly he's fucked up again. But Sean sits down on the edge of the bed and brushes a stray lock of hair off Elijah's forehead.

"I'm sorry," Elijah says, feeling stupid and too young, and way too fucking drunk to be coping with all of this, and suddenly he wants to be in his own bed at home, with his mother beside him, comforting him like she used to when he was little.

"It's okay," Sean says, and something in his tone makes Elijah realize that he is at home, that New Zealand has _become_ home for him, and that Sean's not that different from his mother.

So Elijah says, "You remind me of my Mom," which makes Sean laugh, though Elijah's not sure why.

"I hope you don't try to kiss your mother like that," Sean finally manages, and it really is funny.

When he finally gets control of himself again, the giggles fading away and his stomach aching faintly, he feels like he needs to explain. He's not sure he can put it into words, but he tries anyway. "No. I was just...."

"Lonely?" Sean supplies.

"Confused. Wondering if there's something wrong with me. Nobody wants to stick around." Elijah suspects that when he replays this conversation in his head in the morning—assuming he can even remember it—that he's going to be truly embarrassed. Even now he thinks he sounds like he's spouting a bunch of self-pitying crap.

Sean doesn't seem to mind, though, because he takes Elijah's hand and says, "You'll find someone. Just give it time. You're still really young."

"You and Christine were married at my age," Elijah accuses, angry because the situation is so unfair. Why do Sean and Christine get to be happy and he doesn't?

"And Macaulay's your age and has been married and divorced already. Wouldn't you rather wait and end up with the right person?"

And Elijah really wishes Sean would stop making so much fucking sense; it's irritating. He opens his mouth to tell Sean this, but Sean puts a finger to Elijah's lips. "Get some sleep," he says. "Don't forget the barbecue tomorrow. Call me when you wake up and I'll come get you, okay? Ali will be crushed if you're not there."

Elijah wants to say that there won't be a barbecue tomorrow, that he's just going to keep repeating this one fucked-up day until he goes crazy, except maybe he's already crazy and that's why he thinks he's reliving the same day over and over, but Sean's already gone and then Elijah's not sure exactly what he wanted to say in the first place.

  


* * *

A soft voice murmurs endearments into his ear as warm, sure hands stroke his cock and he's cradled back against his lover's chest—

Elijah slaps hard at the snooze button, the blow sending his glasses skittering across the room, and his first thought is surprise that he doesn't feel worse than he does. His second thought is that _of course_ he's only moderately hung over because yesterday's bender to end all benders never fucking happened; he's just hung over from the mild Friday-night dinner-and-drinks with the other hobbits. His third thought is that he wishes he could remember his dreams better, because he's almost sure he could figure out who the mystery man is, if only he could put the pieces together.

His fourth, fifth, and sixth thoughts are, "Fuck, fuck, FUCK!" And he'd love to call Pete and say he's sick today, or maybe insane, but that's not going to solve anything.

It takes him a minute to find a pack that's not empty, but it's worth it. The first drag calms him and by the time he's finished the cigarette, everything seems sharper, as though he'd been looking through a smudged lens before. He's been feeling like the situation is some kind of punishment, forcing him to relive the day until he gets it right, but he's been wrong. It's really a blessing, an opportunity. He's being given the chance to act without having to deal with the repercussions—at least those that affect everyone but him—and that's something to be appreciated, not resented.

Because he'll go in to work today and Sean won't remember the kiss (and what the _fuck_ had Elijah been thinking—Sean was straight and married and almost like Elijah's _mother_ for fuck's sake!), and Bean won't be avoiding him, and everything will be normal.

The only problem with this new, positive outlook is that there's only one more person Elijah's interested in, and if that doesn't work out then what's he supposed to do? Start going alphabetically through the cast and crew? No, he's not going to worry about it right now. He's going to shower and make polite conversation with Sean on the drive in, and he'll worry about tomorrow when it doesn't happen. Or something.

Which works fine right up to the point where Bean is staring hungrily at him and he realizes that he's still got to take care of that situation. The easiest way seems to be to follow yesterday's script, at least through the first act.

So he takes his sandwiches and chips and heads to his trailer, unsurprised when Bean knocks on the door. He's not quite sure how to get into this, so he just trusts to honesty and his instincts and says without preamble, "I don't think it will work, Sean. I don't think it's what you really want."

Bean looks first confused and then embarrassed before he turns and walks away without a word, and Elijah hopes it was the right thing to do. Of course, if it wasn't, he'll have another chance not-tomorrow, right?

He's just settled back at the table and picked up a sandwich when there's another knock at the door. Resigning himself to a confrontation—and the idea of spending the rest of the day hungry—he opens the door.

It's Orlando.

And Elijah's wishing that he didn't feel so much like a marionette, with some invisible force pulling the strings of his life, but this morning he made the decision to go with it and so he does.

"Hey, Orli. Come in." He steps back so Orlando can get past him, then shuts the door. "Have a seat. I hope you don't mind if I eat, but I'm starving."

Orlando shrugs. "Go ahead."

"Want some crisps?" Elijah offers, pushing the plate towards the middle of the table as he grabs a sandwich and takes a bite before anything else can interrupt.

Orlando shrugs again and they sit in companionable silence, Elijah wolfing down his lunch and Orlando watching with obvious amusement. When he finishes, Elijah says, "So I'm pretty sure you didn't come here to watch me eat. What's up?"

Elijah's surprised when Orlando blushes. "Um. This is going to sound stupid, but you'll just have to trust that it made much more sense in my head." Elijah nods and Orlando continues, "I saw Sean follow you and, well. He's been staring at you. I was—"

"Worried?" Elijah interrupts, and Orlando looks up from where he's been pushing crumbs around Elijah's abandoned plate.

"Yeah." Orlando's answer is belligerent and, Elijah thinks, probably more than a little defensive.

Consciously pushing aside any thoughts about the consequences, he reaches out and puts his hand over Orlando's. "Thanks," he says, softly, and he means it, because he never knew that he mattered that much to Orlando. "He'll be okay now, I think. I...turned him down."

And Orlando looks surprised, but he doesn't pull away or say anything, and so they sit like that—holding hands like a couple of teenagers (and Elijah refuses to acknowledge the thought that he _is_ officially a teenager)—and talking quietly about nothing of importance. And when the knock comes at the trailer door, accompanied by the warning shout of, "Five minutes, Wood," neither of them jump.

Elijah reluctantly lets go of Orlando's hand and Orlando smiles at him—a real, warm smile—and so he says, "The hobbits are going out for a drink tonight. Are you coming?"

But Orlando's shaking his head. "No. I was thinking of a quiet night at home," he says and Elijah feels a pang of disappointment, except there's that brilliant smile again and now Elijah's confused. "There's a great Thai restaurant down the road from me. I thought we could stop by and pick up some takeaway, then go watch a video at my place." He pauses. "If you fancy that, of course."

And then Elijah can feel himself grinning—probably looking like an idiot, but he doesn't really care because if things don't work out then none of this will have happened and if they do then it's all good—as he says, "Sure. That sounds great."

"We should get back to the set, then. Pete'll be livid if we're late," Orlando says, and they both laugh because the idea of Pete being anything other than mellow is ridiculous.

Once again they wrap early and once again Elijah rejects various invitations, assuring Sean that he's got a ride home and promising to show the following afternoon for the barbecue.

And then he's alone with Orlando, riding in Orlando's Jeep with the top down and the stereo cranked so high that it's a wonder the local cops haven't stopped them for violating half a dozen noise ordinances.

Elijah's loving it.

As they stand outside the restaurant so Elijah can smoke while they wait for their order, he looks at Orlando. "Why haven't we done this before?" he asks. "Hung out, just the two of us?"

"It's that defensive ring of hobbits you've got round you," Orlando answers. "Bloody difficult to get past."

Remembering Orlando's earlier concern about Bean, Elijah says, "Seems like I've got an elf for a defender as well." He means it as a friendly tease, but Orlando looks at him seriously—almost seriously enough to look like Legolas, except that the dark mohawk spoils the illusion.

"What did you say to him?" And even though Orlando doesn't say his name, they both know who he's talking about.

Elijah's not exactly thrilled with the idea of explaining, not with the truth and not with a lie, either, but he feels he owes Orlando something, so he makes an attempt. "I'd seen him watching me," he starts, and when Orlando shows no sign of interrupting or being impatient with a long-winded explanation, he continues, "It took me a little while to figure out that it was _me_ he was watching, that it wasn't just happening when Boromir was supposed to be coveting the Ring.

"I figured the situation wasn't going to go away—no matter how much I ignored it—so I made it easy for him to approach me today, and when he did I told him that it wouldn't work. That it really wasn't what he wanted." He looks up at Orlando now, squinting against the setting sun in an effort to see Orlando's expression.

"How'd you know, then?" Orlando asks. "That it wouldn't work, I mean." He's clearly waiting for some definitive answer from Elijah, maybe an avowal of heterosexuality or a proclamation of unrequited love for someone else. But Elijah doesn't have either for him.

All he has is the truth.

Still, what exactly is he risking, aside from a night's hospitality courtesy of a Wellington mental health facility?

He's saved from having to answer by the cute waitress, who pokes her head around the door to announce that their food is ready. Elijah stays outside, taking the last couple of drags off his cigarette while Orlando goes in and pays, and the topic is apparently dropped because when they get back in the Jeep, Orlando turns the stereo up again and they take the last couple of miles down the beachfront road at a vastly illegal pace.

Except that once they're sitting down in Orlando's living room, eating chicken panang out of plastic take-out tubs with cheap wooden chopsticks, the subject is like the pink elephant in the middle of the room—impossible to ignore, but impolite to mention.

And since it's really his elephant, Elijah brings the subject up. "You're going to think I'm crazy."

"Why?" Orlando grins at him. "Have you decided to come bungee jumping with me and Dom after all?"

"Not _that_ crazy," Elijah clarifies. "This is just a little crazy. But you're never going to believe me."

Orlando shakes his head. "Every day I wake up and stand up out of bed is a day I believe in something unbelievable."

Elijah hadn't really thought of it that way, hadn't considered the kind of paradigm shift that Orlando's accident must have caused. If anyone's going to believe him, it will be Orlando.

"Have you ever seen _Groundhog Day_?" Orlando looks blank, so Elijah clarifies, "It's a Bill Murray movie."

"No."

And how's Elijah supposed to explain the situation from scratch? It was hard enough wrapping his brain around the idea _after_ he'd noticed the similarity his life suddenly bore to a movie plot. But there had to be other movies or TV shows that had used the idea....

"Okay, do you watch _The X-Files_?" he says, remembering another example.

"Yeah, when we eventually get episodes, ages after they've been on in the States." Orlando says this like it was a personal insult, as though Elijah himself is behind the delayed foreign airings and Elijah has to resist the urge to laugh.

"There was an episode this season with a bank robbery. Did you see it? Where Mulder goes to the bank and gets shot and the robber blows the bank up? And the day keeps repeating but the only person who remembers what's happened before is the robber's girlfriend, so she's got to try to change things?" And even as he says it, Elijah's beginning to regret trying to explain, because how the fuck can he say—with a straight face—that the universe is repeating not so that he can prevent a terrible crime or save dozens of lives, but so that he can get laid?

No, Orlando won't think he's crazy. Orlando will think he's a crazy egomaniac.

Fuck.

But Orlando's nodding his head, getting into it now. "Yeah, yeah, I remember that. She's got to get Mulder and Scully to listen to her, yeah? What's that got to do with you being crazy?"

Elijah sets his food aside and looks at Orlando, trying for serious and earnest and hoping like hell Orlando believes him. "That's been happening to me," he says, afraid for a second that he won't be able to get the words out.

Orlando looks a little surprised and a lot intrigued. "What, you've been reliving the same day over and over? Today?"

"Yes."

"Brilliant! To what end? I mean, what's the thing you're supposed to be getting right?"

Elijah hesitates and Orlando apparently puts two and two together and gets five, because he says, "You knew Sean would follow you. You knew he was going to— He didn't hurt you, did he? I mean, he didn't go into your trailer today—this today—but did he before?"

And Elijah's not sure which question to answer first because he's so surprised Orlando believes him without question, but it sounds like Orlando's working himself up to being really pissed at Bean, so Elijah tries to derail that first. "No, no. Nothing like that. We...I...it was...." He trails off, embarrassed now because he really doesn't want to get into the details.

"It was...?" Orlando prompts.

"Consensual. It just didn't work out. I think he was more obsessed with the _idea_ of me than really interested in me."

And Orlando seems to relax at that, apparently reassured that Elijah hadn't been assaulted. "Have we done this bit before?" But before Elijah can even open his mouth, Orlando continues, "No, of course not, because then you'd know I'd believe you. So what have you been doing?"

"I.... God, this sounds so lame now that I'm thinking about saying it out loud." Elijah stops, feeling his face heat and knowing that he's blushing, but Orlando's still looking at him, waiting for the answers that—if Elijah's being honest with himself—he really deserves, if only because he appears to actually _believe_ what Elijah's saying.

"I was thinking about what a coward I was for not doing anything when people flirted with me," he finally says.

"So you took Sean up on it and it didn't go well?" Orlando seems like he's really trying to understand, which makes it a little easier.

"Well, not at first. First I asked Viggo to dinner," Elijah says.

Orlando's eyebrows shoot up. "Viggo?"

"Yeah."

"And?" Orlando leans closer, obviously expecting Elijah to spill all the details.

"And we had a nice dinner, a nice walk in the moonlight," a nice fuck on a blanket in the woods, but he's not going to tell Orlando that part, "and we just didn't click. No harm, no foul."

"Then Sean?"

Elijah shakes his head and takes a drink of his beer. "Then Dom. Pizza at his place, a lot of laughs, some fascinating trivia about a has-been actor from the '80s, and we decided we're better off as friends."

" _Then_ Sean?"

"Then Sean," Elijah acknowledged.

"And?" Orlando's nearly in his lap now.

"And I'll bet you watch _Eastenders_." Elijah laughs. "You're really getting into the soap opera aspects of this, aren't you?"

Orlando has the grace to blush, but he doesn't back down. "And?" he prompts again.

"And we had a quickie yesterday afternoon in my trailer. Afterward, he wouldn't look me in the eye and he disappeared last night before I could even talk to him. It was a pretty good bet that he was regretting it, so I just headed him off at the pass today."

"Is that it? All the times you've done today over?"

And Elijah knows it's not how Orlando means it, but his own guilt is nagging at him and he snaps, "What, I haven't fucked my way through enough of the cast and crew for you?" Orlando looks like he's been slapped and Elijah instantly regrets his outburst. "Fuck. I'm sorry, Orli, really. I'm just—frustrated. And feeling a little self-conscious about trying to explain this to you."

Orlando's arms are around him before he's even finished talking, but neither of them says anything. After a minute, Orlando's grip loosens and he says, "I was just thinking how cool it would be. It hadn't occurred to me that it would also be a bit rough on you."

Elijah nods, shifting and settling his back more firmly against Orlando's chest. "It's kind of like having a whole relationship—the exciting, passionate beginning; the wild, incredible sex; and the inevitable, messy breakup—all condensed into a few hours. It sucks, actually."

"Inevitable?" Orlando asks. "You really think love can't last?"

And Elijah hasn't really thought about it, but every relationship he's had has ended, usually badly, so yeah, he's just always assumed that there's no such thing as true love. Especially after the past few days.

"My parents are divorced. No one I know—except maybe Sean and Christine—has ever been really happy in a relationship. So no, I'm not sure I believe in happily ever after," Elijah admits, his head resting against Orlando's shoulder and his eyes closed.

"This from the boy who saved Flipper," Orlando says, his voice light and teasing. "I'm completely disillusioned now. Crushed. Totally."

Elijah thinks about punching him—mostly affectionately, of course, he tells himself—but he's too comfortable to move, so he raises his middle finger in a silent salute.

Orlando laughs. "That's Americans for you. Always doing things half-arsed." And Elijah can so clearly imagine Orlando making the two-fingered British version of the gesture that he doesn't even bother to open his eyes.

Instead, he says, "Half an ass is better than a complete ass," but the last word comes out as almost a squeak because Orlando's slid his hands up under Elijah's t-shirt and is thumbing Elijah's nipples gently.

"Is this all right?" The question is whispered into his ear, the accompanying warm breath making him shudder.

"Oh yeah," he answers, shifting in Orlando's arms so that he can see Orlando's face. "It's not.... I'm not just...." But the words fail him and he wishes he could just dump his thoughts out on the floor for Orlando to sort through.

"Adding notches to your bedpost?" Orlando hazards and Elijah smiles at him, because maybe he doesn't have to dump his thoughts out, maybe Orlando's on the same wavelength.

"Exactly," he says.

"Good. Because I don't mind not being Mr. Right—though I suppose if that's the case I'll never know it—but I'd rather not just be another conquest. Not," Orlando raises a hand when he sees Elijah's mouth open in indignation, "that you'd ever do that. I just don't want you miserable if tonight fails to work out."

Elijah presses his fingers lightly to Orlando's lips. "If there's one thing I've learned from this...whatever it is that's been happening to me, it's that you don't need to worry about tomorrow until you're living it." Then he replaces his fingers with his mouth, first pressing a light kiss to Orlando's lips and then tracing their lines with his tongue until Orlando's mouth opens beneath his.

Somehow in all of this they've ended up horizontal—though Elijah's not exactly sure when or how—and he's lying on top of Orlando, his shirt rucked up and Orlando's hands stroking warm circles on his back. And Elijah's got no doubts that this is what Orlando wants because the hard length of Orlando's cock is grinding against his hip and it would all be overwhelming except that it's almost like they're moving in slow motion or under water, their motions languorous rather than frenzied, the sensations building slowly. The easy rock of Elijah's hips against Orlando's feels right, feels natural, as if this isn't their first time together, but their hundred and first.

"You're thinking," Orlando murmurs against Elijah's lips and Elijah has to laugh.

"You caught me," he says, pulling back a little and looking down into Orlando's eyes. "But they were good thoughts. I was thinking how well we fit together, like we've done this before."

Orlando rolls them over onto their sides. "You," he accuses, brushing a stray lock of hair off Elijah's forehead, "are a hopeless romantic."

"Guilty as charged," Elijah laughs. "But then, so are you."

Orlando's fingers are tracing lightly along his cheekbones now, over the bridge of his nose, and across his lips, so he nips at them and is surprised when Orlando doesn't pull away.

"Wait," Orlando says as Elijah licks at the pad of his index finger. "I've got something better than that."

Elijah knows exactly what he'd rather suck, but Orlando's sitting up and reaching for the huddle of cardboard containers from the Thai restaurant. Peering into each in turn, he apparently finds what he's looking for on the third try.

"Close your eyes," Orlando says, and Elijah does, feeling like Kim Basinger in _9-1/2 Weeks_ , and it's got to be an indication that he's too fucking much of a geek when he keeps thinking of the ways his life parallels various movie plots. Especially when he's got Orlando's hands and mouth all over his body and has much better things to be thinking about, if his brain absolutely insists on thinking.

There's something cool and moist brushing against his mouth for a moment and then it's gone. Reflexively, he licks his lips and tastes...sweet, but not overwhelmingly so. The flavor is vaguely familiar, but before he can place it the cool, sweet, juicy bite is being slipped between his lips and into his mouth and then Orlando is kissing him gently, butterfly touches against his cheeks, his forehead, his nose.

"Mmmm," he says, finally placing the elusive flavor. "Mango."

"Clever lad," Orlando answers, and Elijah can tell that he's smiling without even seeing his face.

Elijah opens his eyes and grins at Orlando. "The next bite had better be sweet sticky rice," he says, "and I'd rather not have it rubbed on me."

Orlando laughs at him. "Okay, then. Enough of that." He hands Elijah the carton. "Your rice."

Elijah sets the container aside. "Not right now," he says. "There are a few other things I'd like to taste first." Then he reaches over and wraps one hand around the back of Orlando's neck, intent on drawing him in for a leisurely kiss, and Orlando doesn't resist but merely shifts closer to Elijah so that their bodies are pressed together.

As Orlando rocks against him, Elijah slides his hands under the back of Orlando's t-shirt and his fingers find the long scar up Orlando's spine. It's not like he hasn't seen that scar dozens of times, but somehow it has an entirely new meaning now. Now it's a reminder of just how close Orlando had come to dying or being paralyzed for life, and how close Elijah had come to never meeting someone who would have such a major impact on his life.

Orlando must have noticed something, because he pulls back and says, "Elijah?"

Elijah forces a laugh, not wanting to ruin the mood. "I was just thinking again," he says. "Bad habit. I really should quit."

"Here." Orlando slips his hand between them to undo Elijah's jeans. "Let's see if we can distract you, shall we?"

And Elijah finds that Orlando is good at providing a distraction, his fingers deft and sure as they wrap around Elijah's cock and stroke it gently. Orlando's other hand has slid up under Elijah's t-shirt, and callused fingertips are sending sparks straight to his balls via his nipples.

"Keep that up," Elijah says between shuddering breaths, "and I'll be so distracted I won't be able to remember my own name."

Suddenly the hands disappear and it's all Elijah can do not to make some sound at the loss, and then he does let out a squeak as Orlando's arms are under and around him and he's suddenly being hauled up and carried—bride-over-the-threshold fashion—across Orlando's living room towards the bedroom, and Elijah _knows_ he's not a big guy, but he's not exactly a lightweight, either, and he didn't realize Orlando was quite so strong.

"Fuck, Orli," Elijah manages once he's done being completely surprised, and Orlando chuckles.

"That was the plan. Bloody clever of you to figure it out so quickly, though."

Elijah manfully resists the urge to poke Orlando in the ribs, less out of consideration than out of a sincere desire not to be dropped on his ass on the floor.

And then they're there, in Orlando's bedroom, and he's set gently down onto the bed and the whole situation is probably the most surreal he's been in—including the whole Saturday redux thing he's got going on. But he really doesn't have time to ponder the strangeness of it all because Orlando's standing by the side of the bed and has stripped off his t-shirt and is working on the fly of his cargoes, and Elijah is torn between wanting to get his own clothes off and wanting to just lie there, watching Orlando's body be revealed.

Because yeah, he's seen it all before, but not like this. Not when it was being bared for him, when it was going to be given to him, for him to look at and touch and taste. So he settles for just watching the play of hard muscle under smooth skin, his gaze tracing the fine line of dark hair down from Orlando's navel to where it disappears into bright red boxers, and then Orlando's thumbs are hooked into the waistband of the boxers and they're sliding down long, lean thighs, but Elijah's attention is caught by the hard curve of Orlando's cock, rising gracefully out of the thatch of dark curls.

It makes Elijah need to press the heel of his hand against his own cock until the achethrob is both better and worse, and then he realizes that Orlando is still standing there, looking at him, and Elijah knows he's overdressed but his hands are shaking as he sits up and tugs his t-shirt off over his head. By the time he can see again, Orlando is sitting on the side of the bed, untying one of Elijah's sneakers, and Elijah's chest tightens as he realizes how lucky he is to have found such an incredible group of friends here. Even if Orlando doesn't work out, and even if he wakes up at five o'clock Saturday morning for the rest of his life...well, okay, that would suck, but even if he has to go through this a few more times, he doesn't regret it because he's learned a hell of a lot about his adopted family and about himself.

Orlando tugs on the legs of Elijah's jeans, and Elijah lies back on the bed and arches his hips, letting Orlando remove them, sliding his boxers down and off. He's really not sure why he's nervous because it's not like he's going to be doing anything he hasn't done before—not after the last couple of days, at least—and Orlando is...just Orlando. He's the same guy Elijah has spent the last couple of months working, eating, and getting drunk with. So why the fuck are his hands shaking and why does he need a cigarette—right now!—more than anything else in the world?

Because he's a fucking tool, that's why. Because he's a neurotic fucking tool.

It's really time for him to just get the fucking hell over it, so he says, "C'mere," and holds one hand out to Orlando, who climbs onto the bed, onto Elijah, crouching over him on hands and knees like some glorious predatory animal.

And Elijah thinks maybe he's nervous because he really wants this to be the last time he relives this particular day, not because he's tired of it—though isn't that the fucking truth—but because Orlando was the one who started this whole chain reaction, the one Elijah first noticed and the one Elijah has always thought was most out of his reach.

Except now here Orlando is, well within reach, every syllable of his body language inviting Elijah to reach out and touch.

And so Elijah does, reaching up with both hands and sliding his palms along the stubble-rough sides of Orlando's head until he can clasp his fingers behind Orlando's neck and pull him down, arching his hips up at the same time in a silent plea for Orlando to touch him. Once again they seem to be in perfect sync, Orlando pushing down where Elijah thrusts up, the give and take of their movements in perfect alignment, and Elijah feels like there's something going on just past the boundary of his conscious awareness, something he doesn't quite understand but he wants to.

He's lost in the easy shiftglide of their sweat-slick bodies, riding the slow-rising tide toward climax and learning Orlando with his hands and mouth, mapping hard and soft, smooth and rough, salty and sweet. Then Orlando changes pace, his thrusts quicker, more urgent, and Elijah shifts gears with him, the lazy build of heat in his cock and balls turning into a headlong rush toward release, and he's oh-so-close when Orlando suddenly stops, pushes himself up so that he's looking at Elijah.

"God, I want—" he starts, but then cuts himself off, licking his lips in a gesture that looks like nervousness to Elijah. "Have you ever been fucked?" he asks instead, and Elijah feels like he could fucking come just from those words, from the sound of Orlando's voice, the way it says everything his words aren't saying, everything Elijah needs to know.

"Yeah," he answers, then realizes that it might not be true, since he's not sure whether his body remembers these repeated days or if they're just some stray electrical impulses in his brain, so he corrects himself. "And no. Just the today before this one, and I don't know if that counts."

"You've got the weirdest life, man," Orlando says. "D'you want to try...."

There's really only one answer for that and it doesn't matter if he's done it before because either way he wants to do it _now_ , wants to feel Orlando slamming into him, wants to give Orlando that freight train experience that's become so familiar lately.

"Yeah," Elijah says without hesitation. "Yes, definitely. How," and it hits him as he's speaking, the echo of yesterday with Bean, "how do you want me?"

But Orlando's not Bean. "Like this," he says, leaning in and licking a stripe up Elijah's neck, "so I can see your face."

The combination of tone and accent sends shivers down Elijah's spine and he thinks he's probably never going to be the same on set because all he's ever going to think of when he hears a British accent is Orlando and fucking and he's pretty sure Pete doesn't want Frodo drooling over Legolas—Tolkien would spin in his grave—not to mention that it's going to really screw with Elijah's concentration.

Which is just fucking shattered as is, because Orlando's taking Elijah apart piece by piece, using only the pressure of his hands, the heat of his mouth, and the hard arch of his cock against Elijah's hip.

Elijah can feel pieces of himself splintering and coming apart, but he's not worried because he trusts that Orlando will collect the shards and keep them safe until Elijah can pull himself back together again.

Then Orlando is whispering in his ear, and he's almost too far gone to put the words together and make them make sense, what with Orlando's cool, slick fingers pushing at him, breaching him. "I think about this, y'know? Fantasize about it. Damn near came in my trousers the first time you were telling everyone who'd listen how flexible you are."

Elijah shudders. He's not sure if it's the damp heat of Orlando's breath against his ear or Orlando's words, but it doesn't really matter because the important thing is that Orlando wants him, is going to fuck him now, finally, and Elijah thinks that _this_ is what he's wanted more than anything, even if he didn't consciously realize it.

And he doesn't think, but just opens his mouth and says, "Do it. Please. I want it so fucking bad. Want _you_ so fucking bad. I think about you when I jack off in the shower in the morning, and I'm hard again as soon as I see you on set."

Orlando groans and, sliding his palms along the backs of Elijah's thighs until Elijah can hook his knees over Orlando's shoulders, he pushes into Elijah with one smooth thrust and the sting and burn is less this time than it was with Bean, and Elijah's probably twice as turned on.

Then they're both speaking and Elijah thinks it's all just nonsense syllables, sounds that translate to _please_ and _more_ and _harder_ , but they each understand the other, Orlando shifting so Elijah's cock gets friction against his stomach, Elijah keeping his gaze locked with Orlando's, showing Orlando everything that Elijah's feeling, showing him how he's making Elijah feel.

Because it's not just the physical aspects—though those are fucking _amazing_ —not just the steady ebb and flow of sensation as Orlando's cock slides into him like they're two halves of one whole, fitting together perfectly.

No, Elijah thinks he may be in love with Orlando, and the thought scares the hell out of him, makes him want to shove Orlando away and run, except that at the same time it makes him feel better than he ever has.

"Oh fuck, 'lij," Orlando says, and he sounds like Elijah feels, all broken shards glittering gold and brown like Orlando's eyes.

So Elijah says, "Yeah, me too," trusting that they're both saying the same thing, and he must be right because Orlando tenses, his mouth falling open just enough to let a quiet sound of surprise escape and his body trembling just enough that Elijah can feel it, like the faintest of earthquakes.

And yeah, it's a pretty earth-shaking realization for Elijah, too, the knowledge pushing him away from the edge just enough—at least until Orlando reaches down between them and takes Elijah's cock firmly in his hand and says, "C'mon. I want to see you come. Let go for me," and then Elijah's totally undone, his body, heart, and soul giving in to Orlando's touch and he lets go, lets Orlando draw the climax out of him and leave him feeling exhausted but satisfied.

Lying in a tangled heap in Orlando's bed, gently stroking exertion-flushed skin and receiving lazy nips and kisses, Elijah really fucking hopes that this is it, that he's done what he was supposed to do, or found who he's supposed to find, or whatever the fuck the universe needs from him in order to end the insanity, because he's not sure he can keep going through this if each iteration is going to get more and more intense, more and more emotionally draining. The Bean thing had hurt, probably as much his pride as anything, but he thinks that if he wakes up in his own bed in the morning his heart might break.

And so without thinking about it, without really meaning to even, he holds tightly to Orlando as sleep creeps up on him.

  


* * *

A gentle kiss is pressed to his temple, and Elijah recognizes his dream lover's arms around him, knows the feel of the lean, muscular body that presses against his back, and he thinks just one more minute of the dream will let him put the pieces together, figure out who it is that he's meant to be with.

He can hear the surf, quiet but distinct, and that's got to be a clue, except—

"Are you awake?" Orlando whispers in his ear, and Elijah is almost afraid to open his eyes, afraid that the dream will melt away with the sound of his alarm. "Because," Orlando continues, "I was thinking I'd like you to fuck me this morning."

That makes Elijah open his eyes and he's pretty sure he's not dreaming this time because he sees Orlando smiling down at him.

"I take it today's an entirely new day?" Orlando asks, and Elijah answers him by rolling them over so that he's sitting on top of Orlando, astride Orlando's hips.

"I'm going to fuck you through this mattress," he says with a wide grin, "and then we're going to Sean and Christine's barbecue."

**Author's Note:**

> Stephen Geoffreys (who played Evil Ed in Fright Night) really has been doing gay porn since about 1994. I haven't seen any of the movies in question, but I can't imagine they're good, considering the titles. If you're curious, check out his listing at IMDB. And lastly, my very careful perusal of a lovely screencap of naked Viggo suggests to me that he's uncut, and so I've run with that. I don't really have any way of verifying (though if I did, I'd hardly be sharing it with you all, now would I? *g*).


End file.
